MONTH 8
(32–35 weeks)
Baby’s weight: 15 to 21½ pounds (average for girls);
16½ to 23 pounds (average for boys)
Baby’s height: 25½ to 29 inches (average for girls);
26 to 29½ inches (average for boys)
YOUR BABY
You can feel the gathering strength in your baby’s head and neck muscles—these help her to stay erect if you pull her by the arms into a sitting position. Coordination has definitely improved now, and crawling is the order of the day. She can sit steadily now, and she may even be able to lean forward to reach something and then straighten herself back up again without falling over. (But, again, every baby develops at her or his own pace!)
Eight-month-old baby
Some babies pull themselves up to stand and cruise around furniture before they crawl. And babies adopt lots of strange postures for moving themselves around. It’s all about getting from here to there, and not so important what mode of locomotion the baby elects to use. Being a passive passenger in the world is one thing, but when you’re in the driver’s seat, everything takes on new excitement and dimensions.
Your baby is actively building mind maps for the lay of the land: Pass the safety gate and stairs; turn right into the den with the yellow rug; bear left at Daddy’s favorite chair; loop around his newspaper pile; pull up and reach down into the basket of toys, and throw them out one by one.
All this physical action is developing your baby’s sense of the dimensional world. This intense exploration less than a foot from the floor will pay off later when it’s time to decipher words printed inside the covers of a book about the same distance away.
Tip
Some babies become head or crib bangers at this stage. Something about the rhythm of knocking on the crib or lurching it around seems to help them relax. Eventually the strange movements will stop on their own. Meanwhile, check that all the crib’s screws are secure, and place furniture cups under the crib’s legs to keep it from moving.
Your baby is practicing opening and closing her fingers and is becoming an expert at dropping and throwing objects. Spoons and toys are repeatedly thrown overboard in a well-executed experiment in gravity and noise that also includes the sounds of mom and dad groaning as they reach down yet again to retrieve a jettisoned object.
Her grasping skills have advanced from just batting at things a few months ago to grasping small objects with her fists with her thumb pressed against her forefinger. She will awkwardly try to apprehend small objects, like peas or raisins, or a piece of string, but it’s mostly trial and error. She may be able to hold two objects at once, one in each hand, and she could figure out how to knock them against each other. Try presenting her with a variety of textures and shapes to manipulate.
Tip
Research shows that reading to babies at this age can help them to recognize the sequence of words in a story when it is read two or three times in a row. That’s one way to boost your baby’s language learning.
Professor Baby is also determining how objects interact with one another: smaller objects fit inside bigger ones; banging a wooden spoon against a pot makes a great noise; things that have been hidden under a cloth or piece of paper have the ability to reappear; an animal in a book is called the same name every time. A few months from now your baby will grasp that brushes are for hair, cups are for drinking, volume knobs are for turning up the sound, and telephone receivers are for talking.
Your baby’s gibberish is taking center stage this month, whether it’s dada, mama, or nonsense words like kudaga. Your baby is able to recognize where words begin and end, which is the beginning of understanding the complexities of language. Her body awareness is growing, too. If you tap her body from behind, she’ll probably look to see who did it.
WARNING!
The sharp edges and corners of coffee tables send over 60,000 babies (and others) to emergency rooms every year, usually from falls into their corners or edges. Consider removing yours and storing it in a safe place until your baby gets steadier on her feet.
“I’ve discovered that it’s easier if I saddle my baby with a diaper while she’s standing up and her hands are occupied than trying to lasso her to the ground. That strategy doesn’t work as well, though, when there’s a lot of poop involved.”
Now’s the time to pull out age-old baby games, like waving bye-bye, and playing “Peek-A-Boo,” “Where’s Baby,” “Stinky Feet,” “Pat-A-Cake,” and “How Big Is Baby” (“So-o-o-o Big!”).
YOU
You may find yourself truly enjoying this stage of parenthood! Your baby’s emotional expressions and her nearly overnight mastery of new hand and body skills can be incredible to watch firsthand. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, you will have established a firm bond with your baby by now and feel that you’ve got your baby (and household) management skills down pat. Hopefully, too, you’ve established a core of good friends, such as women with similar values who also have babies and with whom you can share stories and information.
If you haven’t returned to work, you may begin to wonder what it would be like to enter that “other” world where civilized adults talk at leisure with one another and take hours for lunch. Going into the workforce can be a mixed blessing: You’ll pine for your baby and want to know she’s okay; plus, you will have to cover the (usually high) costs of child care and other work necessities. But, at the same time, it may feel exhilarating to be back in the all-adult world where you can get things “done” without your little charge underfoot. (For more about returning to work, see of 5. Managing Your First Year.)
Baby Development
Looking in on baby vision
Since birth, your baby has spent much of her viewing time learning how to see. She’s been honing her skills for focusing, getting her two eyes to work together, figuring out depth, developing eye-hand coordination, and making spatial judgments—such as how far away she is from you or an object.
Even as a newborn, your baby could already focus clearly on the things that were important to her: her hands, fingers, feet, and toes and your eyes, lips, and smile. The anatomy needed to focus on objects in the distance was already there, but the retina in the rear of her eyeballs and the part of her brain that interprets visual messages wasn’t yet mature. Or, to put it another way, the camera was all there, but not in focus.
Babies as young as two weeks of age can tell the difference between red and green objects, although their color perception isn’t as rich and sensitive as an adult’s because of their immature retinas and brains. While a baby that age can’t tell the difference between red and reddishorange, or subtle variations in pastels, she can distinguish colored patterns that are large and have sufficient contrasts in color and brightness.
During your baby’s first month, her visual acuity improved to about 20/120; that is, if she could read, she’d be able to make out the big E on an eye chart. By two months of age, she could perceive almost all of the subtle shadings that make the visual world so rich. Between months two and four, she learned to move her eyes without moving her head, and by months four and five, her brain finished learning how to fuse the pictures coming in from each eye and to merge their input to give strong depth perception.
By month four, your baby’s visual acuity doubled to 20/60, and she could recognize your unique face over all others in the world. Now, at month eight, your baby’s visual acuity has doubled yet again, so she’s seeing 20/30, or nearly the clarity of normal adult vision. Gradually, over the coming months, your baby’s visual acuity will normalize at 20/20, meaning she will see things 20 feet away just as sharply as you do if you have normal vision.
By the time your baby reaches her first birthday, she will be able to orchestrate the use of her eyes with the use of her hands and the movement of her body. She will take pleasure in grasping and throwing toys. She will have complex maps of visual memories.
Once crawling and walking start, your baby’s eyes will take on even more power as they help her in coordinating and directing her body’s movements. She’ll spot a toy across the room, focus on it, move to it, pick it up, turn it over, focus on it again, and then turn it over for closer visual scrutiny.
How crawling works
Typically, this is the sequence for crawling: Your baby will start pulling herself up to a standing position using the side of the couch or the coffee table to support herself, and stepping sideways.
Repeated practice of pulling up helps to strengthen her shoulders and upper arms until they’re strong enough to support the weight of her head. Next, your baby will get up on all fours, and she may practice rocking back and forth while staying in one place. Most babies scoot backward before they master moving forward.
Finally, your baby will learn how to use the strength of her thighs and her forearms to propel herself forward on all fours. Some babies adopt unusual crawling patterns: creeping on her belly; using rolling to get places; walking like a crab up on all fours (which saves wear and tear on the knees); or sitting on her diaper, using an arm for support, and digging her heels into the floor to scoot herself forward or backward.
Whatever works.
“Our daughter didn’t crawl until she was eleven months old and didn’t walk until she was fourteen months old. After that, she raced around like a banshee from one room to another. Then, we longed for the good old days when she just lay around and gnawed on things.”
Stranger anxiety
Your baby is developing an ever-enlarging repertoire of emotions. She may perform tricks if you repeat them enough, such as throwing a kiss to someone, especially when applause follows. You may discover that your baby is learning to read emotions and imitate moods in others, too. If she sees someone crying, she may cry in sympathy. If you’re feeling blue, she may dampen down her reactions, too. She responds differently to different sounds: thunder, scolding, or a loving human voice.
Tip
Sometime between 8 and 10 months of age, some babies start waking up and thrashing about or crying. It happens at about the time a baby’s visual memory starts getting stronger. The baby may be having strong dreams, some of which may be frightening. Save the hour before bedtime for calming activities, such as a warm bath, holding a toy and reading a book in the rocking chair, or listening to soothing music instead of for frantic horseplay.
Most babies are definitely “mom-centric” at this phase, especially if she is the number one feeder and diaperer. “Stranger anxiety” is a normal part of development at this stage and can sometimes cause a normally adventurous baby to suddenly become shy and clingy. Sometimes this is flattering, but usually, it’s just challenging.
When approached by someone you want your baby to know, an unfamiliar grandparent or aunt for example, you may find your normally outgoing and attention-seeking baby very wary and trying to bury her face against your neck. Here’s one strategy to use: Have your baby sit in your lap so she feels protected. Have the “stranger” dangle a set of keys or a small toy in front of your baby while being careful to avoid direct eye contact. Your curious baby is likely to spring for the bait, and may even reluctantly agree to be held.
A Quick Safety Checkup
This can also be a tough parenting stage, because you really have to watch your baby’s every move unless she’s safely sleeping or strapped into her car seat. Even though you’ve probably already baby-proofed your home, now’s a good time to go back and make sure everything’s under control in the safety department. Electrical outlets, dangling cords, sharp-edged coffee tables, dishwasher detergent, and a hundred other things pose imminent danger to your curious and speedy little adventurer who has absolutely no idea of dangers or consequences.
There should be no medications in your beside drawer or purse if these are easy for your baby to get into; no pills or strong liquids, including mouthwash, in the medicine cabinet that your baby could access by climbing on to the sink; alcoholic beverages should be safely out of reach; there should be no toxic chemicals or detergents within baby’s reach, including highly toxic detergent for the dishwasher; and no small objects such as paper clips, coins, marbles, batteries, or small toys designed for older children should be left lying around. These items could choke your baby. Outdoors, be watchful about water-filled buckets and wading pools. Hundreds of babies drown in them every year. Remind family members that it’s dangerous for your baby to be a passenger on ride-on lawnmowers. (For more on comprehensive babyproofing information, see in 6. Medical and Safety Guide.)
If that doesn’t work, a second approach is to sit down on the floor with the baby. The unfamiliar person should crouch or sit at baby-level, but stay three to four feet away. Your baby’s curiosity may get the best of her and she’ll gradually approach the unknown person if no one pays her much attention.
“I don’t want to waste time sitting in front of the TV after I get home. I want to spend every minute I’m not working with my daughter.”
Tip
If you haven’t already done so, enroll in a first-aid and CPR course that includes information about babies and children. Inquire about courses at your local fire station or American Red Cross chapter. What you learn could save your baby’s life!
If the person you’re introducing is a babysitter, don’t rush away too quickly. Take some time to let your baby become comfortable with the person, then say “bye-bye” to the baby before leaving, and reassure her you’re coming back, rather than simply disappearing into thin air. Don’t let the prospect of tears dissuade you from leaving, though.